Mark Cuban, Jim Crane join forces in bid for Texas Rangers

FORT WORTH, Texas -- There's a little less competition for the Texas Rangers in bankruptcy court, as Mark Cuban has joined forces with Houston businessman Jim Crane in their bid for the club.

The Cuban/Crane consortium will square off this today (auction to start at noon ET) against a group headed by Pittsburgh businessman Chuck Greenberg, who heads a group that includes Rangers president Nolan Ryan and is the preferred bidder of Major League Baseball.

The Rangers have been in bankruptcy for 18 months. In June, Rangers lenders said Crane had the high bid on the team, exceeding the Greenberg group's offer. Now, he has the added financial muscle of Cuban, the outspoken owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. But Cuban's, ahem, maverick style and allegations of insider trading by the SEC may give MLB pause to approve him as owner. The SEC's suit against Cuban was dismissed in district court in July 2009, but the SEC is appealing the dismissal.

Current Rangers owner Tom Hicks is attending this morning's proceedings in Northern District bankruptcy court.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge D. Michael Lynn has invited groups to submit bids only if they start at $15 million more than the Greenberg-Ryan cash offer of $306.7 million -- which excludes $204 million paid to unsecured creditors, including deferred payments owed to Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. The offer was raised to more than $510 million, hinging on the auction being canceled, but Lynn ruled that the sale process will proceed.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Russell Nelms will oversee the auction and announce which of the starting bids is the highest before the auction commences. Bids must be made in at least $2 million increments.

The field began to narrow Monday, when News Corp. announced it would not bid on the Rangers, ending speculation that the media behemoth would make a run at the team to secure cable television rights to the baseball club and other Dallas-area teams for its Fox Sports Net property.

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